With unrestricted travel within Scotland now a reality and no real holiday planned, day trips were the order of the day during my summer break. Obviously this presented the chance to push further afield than what has been possible over these past few months but it also affords the opportunity to tidy up a bunch of relatively local expeditions that have sitting on the to-do list.
I wanted to find the walled garden for Kennet House near Clackmannan. The house was demolished back in 1967 - yet another example of a grand country residence unable to keep pace with changing trends during the 20th century. As sometimes happens, the garden enclosure survived and is clearly visible on satellite mapping. The surrounding landscape today is dominated by farming and my guess was the old garden would now be used for grazing. I parked in a modern residential scheme and crossed the road at the point where the old estate entrance and gatehouse were located. As is commonly the case, the lodge is now a private dwelling. They would have been easy to sell off when these old country piles were being broken up. Crumbling and rambling country houses, distinctly less so. The old estate road is now part of a public path network and led me past new housing. I pushed on to what now serves as a farm track and passed between a couple of fields. A mound of earth and rubble stood on the old mansion site and just around the corner I came across the high walls of the garden compound. A nice bonus was the fact the corner where I stood was built into an incline with the road offering sufficient elevation to look over the wall and into the garden - a viewpoint I hadn't experienced before.
Walled gardens can be difficult to photograph as you're normally standing at ground level surrounded by a sea of grass. The actual walls can seem very distant. My eye in the sky position helped me get a bit more perspective in my shots and I could also look across the neighbouring landscape. On the opposite side from me were the crumbling remains of what may well have been hothouses incorporated into the structure. Estate gardens of course were used to grow produce for the kitchen but there was often an element of luxury involved. Cavity walls could be heated and exotic specimens such as pineapples and mangoes would thrive in lean-to glasshouses. I decided against making my way across to investigate. Sheep were grazing inside the compound and I would have to negotiate a couple of fences on the way. The local farmer had obviously purchased the garden for agricultural use and it wouldn't be nice of me to go tramping in my size 11's across part of a functioning farm. Different story if these places are truly abandoned. Satisfied with my find, I made my way back to the car and made a mental note to develop a Clackmannan heritage walk for the website. I had a roughly circular route in mind and the walk out to the old walled garden would make a useful detour. The same afternoon, Nicole and I headed through to Forth Valley Hospital on the edge of Larbert. Not the usual sort of destination for day trippers but the building is surrounded by woodland walks and there were a couple of historical aspects I had uncovered online.
The modern hospital was opened in 2010 and is conveniently situated just off the motorway. It has an award-winning restaurant which is fully accessible to the public and I've stopped there for a bite to eat on a couple of occasions. I've also travelled through on the bus which runs directly from our village. The Station Hotel bar is just down the road from the hospital and is one of Scotland's most esteemed real ale pubs. Handy to have that regular public transport connection. Even better, I can effectively go for free when using a weekly bus pass to commute to work as the hospital is included within the Fife-Plus zone. The site formerly hosted the Royal Scottish National Hospital - a vast Victorian psychiatric institution which finally closed in the 1990s. It does often surprise me that these huge "asylums" were still operating until the decade before the 21st century. Mind you, that can be up to 30 years go! (Even if in my mind the 90s were, like, yesterday). The old institutions had undoubtedly become unfit for purpose in a modern world but we should never judge the past by the standards and expectations of today. The core principles of providing residents with a quiet spacious environment and lots of fresh air, along with meaningful tasks such as gardening, are sound enough in any medical textbook. The set-up did of course lead to patients becoming institutionalised and probably the worst affected were those who - having spent years, even decades, in the relative comfort and security of an asylum, were suddenly expected to cope with "care in the community"
Next to the old hospital stood Larbert House, which is now divided into several apartments. The old owners created an artificial lake within the grounds for fishing purposes. This was the starting point for today's wander and the wooden pier provided excellent views of the Falkirk skyline, Larbert Church particularly impressive in the foreground. A family of ducklings swam by and we made our way around the lake before disappearing into the trees. We passed the old mansion and our pleasant woodland circuit eventually brought us back to the large hospital car park. Parkinson's Law seems to come down on NHS parking like a ton of bricks. The more spaces you create, the quicker they seem to fill. Actually it's not too bad out here and I've always managed to find a spot. Something caught my eye as we were making our way back to the starting point - the unmistakable sunken form of an icehouse. I've developed something of a sixth sense for spotting these 19th-century installations, built to allow households to keep food chilled year round. Nice for those who could afford it! As ever, the human tendency towards one-upmanship crept in and some icehouses had elaborate walk-in chambers rather than being just a frosty hole in the ground. I went over to investigate and found the metal grille to be unlocked. The interior was full of debris and I refrained from climbing in.
There was one final destination to visit. Just over a mile beyond the hospital lies Hills of Dunipace Cemetery. The large modern burial site has ample parking facilities and we drove down. Tucked away in the corner is a much older graveyard flanked by two curious tree-covered earth mounds. The exact purpose of the "hills" is unclear but they could have been defensive positions. Dunipace Castle was apparently sited nearby. A piper was practising in the old lodge. She volunteered to stop, should we wish to pay our respects. We informed her we were just looking around and she carried on playing. I also wanted to see the tower outside the cemetery boundary and I made my way across. Octagonal in form, my guess is it served as a dovecot. I managed to scramble through the vegetation for a peek inside. Worth popping down since we were already in the area. Nicole found the whole concept of hospital tourism rather amusing but it was indeed a nice wander in the fresh air within interesting surroundings.
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